


Vita Bella

by paintedrecs



Series: The Supermoon Series [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Bottom Stiles Stilinski, Derek Has Issues, First Dates, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, Happy Ending, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, POV Derek, Sex Toys, Werewolf Derek, this is way more feelings than sex though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-01
Updated: 2015-10-01
Packaged: 2018-04-24 06:15:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4908463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paintedrecs/pseuds/paintedrecs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The final snapshot in the Supermoon series.</p><p>Also known as: Derek couldn't find the moon, but at least he found his Stiles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vita Bella

**Author's Note:**

> The conclusion to parts [one](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4889152) and [two](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4901263); this will make a lot more sense if you read those first.

They didn't have sex the first time Stiles invited him inside. Derek had sort of assumed that's where they were heading, judging from the chemosignals pouring off Stiles in heady waves, and the way he bit his lip and skated his gaze over Derek's bare chest.

That wasn't to say nothing happened. He touched his own lips, back in the safety of his apartment, as though he could still feel the swelling from Stiles's breathtakingly enthusiastic mouth. 

When they'd gotten inside, Stiles had offered him a shirt, awkwardly retracted the suggestion, then gave up and told Derek he wasn't sure which statement was more offensive, and that he should find a way to shut him up.

He took the invitation. Stiles squawked in a satisfying sort of way and then surged hungrily into the kiss, and they'd spent a good hour on the couch. Stiles's noises were, inconceivably, even better from close up. He tested different angles, different touches - feather light brushes along his ribs, a rough mouth over a nipple - and decided, very quickly, that this was going to turn into an addiction.

Panting and a satisfying shade of red, Stiles had finally thumped his head back against the armrest and asked Derek if he wanted a drink. He'd settled back on his heels, not sure if he was being unceremoniously kicked out, but Stiles reached up to touch his eyebrows and repeated the invitation.

Stiles was...confusing, to say the least. An odd mix of sexually charged, confident bravado that could shift the next minute into a mass of fumbling limbs and words that tumbled over each other.

"I only have cheap, crappy beer right now," he'd warned, and Derek wrinkled his nose at the options he pulled out of the fridge. When your constantly regenerating system prevents you from picking up that fabled buzz, there's very little point in settling for the less palatable brands.

Stiles read his expression and shifted gears. "Or water? I have juice, I think," he said, shoving his head deeper into the fridge, setting his mole-spotted back beautifully on display.

Derek crowded in closer, and Stiles startled, straightening up and smacking his head against a shelf, setting bottles rattling in time with his vehement cursing. They kissed for a while longer, anyway, Stiles biting at his mouth in retaliation, then sweeping a long-fingered hand through his chest hair and gently twisting a nipple.

"You look cold," he breathed into his mouth. "I can make us some coffee."

Derek reached behind him and closed the fridge door, which had been pouring energy-wasting chilled air into the room.

"Oh," Stiles said, blinking big, long-fringed amber eyes at him. He made an extraordinarily appealing sound when Derek nuzzled below his ear, then used his teeth and tongue to draw in Stiles's taste - a strange combination of smoke and wood shavings and something spicy, like cinnamon.

Somehow, they still ended up on Stiles's tiny balcony, holding two steaming mugs of badly brewed coffee. Stiles had zipped up a thin hoodie, his teeth chattering some as he talked, and tossed Derek an oversized sweatshirt with a university logo emblazoned on the chest.

Derek was confused, but oddly content. It'd been a long time since someone had given him that smoldering look and actually wanted to talk afterwards. Or during. Or at all.

Stiles was, to put it lightly, a talker. It was as though he'd been spilling over with thoughts and ideas he'd been waiting, desperately, to share. Now that he had Derek's attention, he needed to release them all at once - before he disappeared again, he said, hooking an ankle around Derek's to make his point. It turned out they'd been neighbors for a full year, without exchanging a single word.

"I did notice you," Derek argued. He hadn't realized it'd been quite that long, that was all. He tracked time differently, and everything seemed to speed by when he had a book deadline that he kept missing.

"Ah," Stiles nodded wisely. "You're on more of a monthly system?"

Derek furrowed his brow. "No," he responded slowly. "I guess I mark things more in terms of my writing, or when my sister's ready to swing back into town for a few weeks." He checked his watchless wrist, as though there was a countdown he could point to as evidence. "She's probably due back before long, unless she extends her trip again."

Stiles thought about it. "Dark hair, very pretty, snarled at me when I tried to hold the gate for her?"

"That sounds like Cora."

They talked for at least another hour - maybe two. He'd lost track, swimming in a lovely sort of haze. They carried the conversation through a second round of coffee and a retreat back to the warmth of Stiles's cluttered living room. By the time Stiles was kissing him goodbye at the door, Derek had somehow described half the plot of his current book - which he never did. Not even with his editor, who called him every Thursday to vibrate with anxiety about it.

He sank down onto his bed, hearing Stiles rustling on the other side, muttering to himself. Derek carefully didn't listen to the words, but set his hand against the wall, just for a moment, as though he could feel Stiles through it.

He fell asleep wearing the sweatshirt, which he had - perhaps with more intention behind it than he would have admitted if confronted - neglected to return.

Derek expected, with the experience he'd had with these kinds of interactions, to go days before seeing Stiles again. Weeks, maybe. It wasn't that he lacked for attention, or that Stiles's interest in him was unique on its own. Erica dragged him out at least every couple of weeks, trying to make sure he didn't retreat too far into his shell. 

Sometimes he gave in: let someone approach him, used his body the way he knew would make their eyes dilate, enjoyed it, even. Sometimes he sat in a booth with Boyd, companionably watching the game on their favorite bar's big screen tvs while Erica danced.

What he never did was _date_.

So when Stiles showed up at his door the next afternoon, with a confident swagger and nerves wafting off his skin, Derek invited him inside, figuring he understood the score, now. 

He felt a slight pang over it. Stiles was intriguing, and he'd like to spend more time with him, in a way he hadn't wanted in...in years, maybe. Long before Kate had blasted into his life and tried to scratch apart his defenses.

Stiles made a startled sound as he closed the door behind him and pressed him against it, but greeted him with equal fervor.

"I wanted to ask," he eventually said, curving a hand around Derek's jaw and giving him a crooked, disarming smile, "if you - whoa, what the hell is that?"

He did some inhumanly flexible wiggletwist and was in Derek's living room before he knew what was happening.

"This is unbelievable," Stiles said, awestruck, tracing a finger along the intricate whorls on the side of his coffee table.

"It was expensive," he said, not sure why he felt like he needed to apologize for it. He moved away from the doorway, still thrown off-balance. "Probably the most I've ever spent on a piece of furniture, actually." He gestured around the room. "The rest's from Ikea."

Stiles's mouth gaped open, and Derek's attention caught on it. He blamed that for the way he initially missed Stiles's response.

"What?" he said, blinking back at him.

Stiles smirked, as though he knew exactly what he was thinking. "It's mine," he said again.

"I bought it," Derek repeated. This was a new one; he'd never had someone come into his house and try to steal his things. Then again, he couldn't remember the last time he'd let someone who wasn't family or pack enter his space.

"I made it," Stiles clarified. "I - look, maybe this is a sit down and pay attention kind of discussion." He plopped on the couch and patted the cushion next to him.

Derek took the floral-patterned armchair, which Cora had told him later was meant to be a _joke_ , Derek, oh my god, don't take everything I say so seriously.

Stiles squinted at him. "Fair enough." He sighed and steepled his fingers, elbows braced on his knees. "Okay, you know Satomi?"

"Yes," he said carefully. "She's an old family friend."

"I work for her. Have for - well, slightly longer than I've lived here. And I made this." He slapped an open hand on the table top. "I thought I'd never see it again; I can't believe you wound up with it. Fate, man."

Derek was still a few steps behind, but it did explain the wood scent that had seemed to be layered on Stiles's skin, not present anywhere else in his apartment.

"I've been to her shop," he said. "I've never seen you." He really was losing track of time, wasn't he? "I guess it's been longer than I'd realized."

"Well, I'm not there 24/7, dude. She sends me out on deliveries and things, when she starts worrying I'm going to get restless and start breaking stuff. Also: should I point out again that you'd never seen me _here_ , and we literally share a wall?"

"I've seen you," he said again, but he let it go. It was true that he hadn't paid a lot of attention, nor had he thought about the connection between the attractive guy wandering the halls and the loud one next door. Laura would get on his case again about his lack of spatial awareness, if she knew. He'd only wondered, in annoyance, why the tenant with the unpronounceable name got so many packages, and whether he recycled the boxes.

"Anyway," Stiles continued, and his scent spiked again. "That, right there?" He pointed at Derek. "With the flaring nostrils? This is why I shouldn't have needed Satomi to tell me about werewolves."

Derek's pulse tripped into overtime, and he dug his fingers into the sides of his thighs. "What," he managed.

"It's okay!" he said, waggling his fingers in the air, as though that was supposed to mean something to him. "Turns out I'm magic, too. Who knew that was a thing, huh?"

They didn't end up having sex that night, either, or even touching again until they'd thoroughly talked through what they each knew, and whether Stiles was trustworthy. He'd had _that_ lesson drilled into him, even though it'd taken more years than it should have to stick.

And if Satomi trusted him, it meant he probably didn't have much to worry about. He was going to have a talk with her later, though, about why she'd never mentioned her new magical trainee in their semi-regular check ins. 

Mostly she asked him dull things like whether he was eating properly, and whether he'd heard from Laura lately. He got the distinct impression that she was hoping to move on, sooner rather than later. She'd been without a pack of her own for years, and while she'd been happy to step up and offer her assistance when it was needed, her patience was wearing thin. 

Laura's scars had faded long ago; they'd stayed on the road until the last traces had healed, and no one would be tempted to investigate how someone that visibly damaged had recovered without extensive surgery. No one in Beacon Hills had seen her in the days before they'd left. No one would bat an eye if she returned now. But she stayed away - not obsessively traveling like Cora, but stuck at a distance.

"I couldn't move back into the house," he told Stiles later that evening, having given up on maintaining their buffer. Stiles had proven to be as good of a listener as he was a talker, and Derek jolted through periodic bursts of fear, wondering if he was revealing too much, too quickly.

The house wasn't soaked in blood, not really. It only felt that way to him. To Laura, too, most likely. He suspected it was part of the reason she couldn't bring herself to come back. The first time Cora had visited him, tanned and cheerful after an extended summer in Australia, she hadn't even mentioned the house. She'd settled into his little apartment, made him buy a couple extra things to more comfortably accommodate a guest, then hopped on another plane.

His dad hadn't been there that night, but the three of them had returned in time, tiredly trailing back from a late football game that Peter had insisted Cora wanted to accompany them to. Derek had swung Cora into his arms and held her there, face tucked firmly into his throat, watching as Laura flung herself, sobbing, at the man who'd taught her how to drive, and smoke, and swear.

With Laura and their mom working together, it hadn't taken long, although the claws along her throat and chest had slashed more deeply than he'd known even one of their kind could survive. 

He'd carried Cora upstairs as his mother checked over Laura's wounds, then his parents had wrapped up the body in his mother's favorite rug and carried it to the woods. They'd returned smelling of blood and charred flesh. His mother had called Satomi, taken a few days to set her affairs in order, then packed their remaining family into her car and left.

“Why’d you come back?” Stiles asked.

Derek couldn’t pinpoint a solid answer. He was tired of running. Something about Beacon Hills always tugged at the Hales, pulling them to their roots, to where generations of their family had anchored themselves to the land. It’s why Cora swung in and out at regular intervals, a pendulum throwing herself as far away as she could get, but never entirely breaking free.

“It’s where I belong,” he said, and Stiles nodded once, eyes searching his, as though it was all he’d needed to hear.

Derek wasn’t sure why the state of Stiles’s bedroom came as a surprise; he had a pretty accurate mental picture of his sexual appetite, and had begun gathering a compelling portrait of his personality over the past few days. 

Nevertheless, while Stiles was busy shoving a pile of his clothes off the bed and out of sight, Derek strolled over to the rather large box on the nightstand and poked his head inside. He snorted, raising an eyebrow and gingerly lifting a thick, dark red dildo with a swollen base into view.

Stiles heard him and dove at the box, dropping an armload of seemingly identical hoodies onto the floor, as well as what looked suspiciously like the slippers Derek had accidentally left behind that first night.

Derek kept a firm grip on the toy, which brought Stiles chest-to-chest with him when he tried to grab it away. He let his fangs drop, slowly, and watched in fascination as Stiles’s fingers loosened and he swayed into Derek’s space.

“It’s called a knot,” he said, licking his lips, eyes fixed on Derek’s fangs. “It’s a werewolf thing.”

“It’s not a werewolf thing,” he scoffed, tossing it back into the box and grabbing Stiles by the hips instead, pulling him closer. Stiles went willingly, lifting a hand to rub at the ridges where his eyebrows had disappeared. “If you’re with me because you think I have a fucking knot-”

“Oh, shut up,” Stiles said, kissing the edge of his mouth, and flicking his tongue over the sharp tip of a fang, like a complete idiot. “I have a dragon one, too. And some sort of weird tentacle that doesn’t feel nearly as great as it looks. But you? The only concern I have with your cock is why it’s not in me yet.”

He groaned, a little turned on and a little appalled that this was doing it for him. “You’re the world’s worst boyfriend,” he growled, and Stiles froze for a second, and then grinned, so widely Derek half-worried he was injuring himself.

“But I’m _your_ boyfriend,” he said. “And you’re mine. No return policies, no take backs.”

The thing Derek had never known about sex was that it could be so _joyous_. 

Stiles fell off the bed, twice, and Derek laughed so hard he gave himself hiccups, which required a glass of water and a lot of petting of his hair as Stiles reassured him this was a thing that happened sometimes - apparently even to big, bad werewolves - and he wasn’t dying.

After, when Stiles wrapped his arms around Derek’s waist and let him stroke his sweaty hair out of his face, he began rehearsing how he was going to tell his family about this impossible to describe person who’d slid right into his life and seemed to have no intention of budging.

He’d tell his mom the part about the moon; she’d like that story, and probably shed some tears over wolves and destiny.

He was definitely, absolutely, never telling anyone the bit about their deceptively thin walls. Even if that'd been the piece that, through some weird, humorous twist in the universe's plans, had ultimately brought them together.

Maybe he was a disgustingly sappy romantic, he thought, as Stiles began snoring loudly into his chest. But maybe he was okay with that, for once in his life.

**Author's Note:**

> I've got a [fic recs blog](http://paintedrecs.tumblr.com/) and a [regular blog](http://paintedlandscape.tumblr.com/), and you're welcome to find me on either/both. I tend to ramble more on [twitter](https://twitter.com/paintedrecs).


End file.
